Newsletter

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson speaks during a special called meeting Friday afternoon at City Hall.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News Savannah City Council meets during a special called meeting Friday afternoon at City Hall.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News Savannah City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney addresses a question from Alderman Tom Bordeaux during a special called meeting Friday afternoon at City Hall.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News Savannah City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney speaks during a special called meeting Friday afternoon at City Hall.

After a five-hour hearing that detailed unpaid vendors, a narrowly avoided lawsuit, employee turnover and a falsified resume by a business associate of the city manager, Savannah City Council members publicly reprimanded Rochelle Small-Toney on Friday.

Mayor Edna Jackson, with members of the media hovering around her, read a prepared statement in which council directed Small-Toney “to demonstrate marked improvement immediately.”

“Bills have not been paid when they should have been paid,” Mayor Jackson read. “Employment credentials have not been examined as they should have been. Requests for bids have been improperly handled. Travel expenses have not been processed correctly and the city’s travel policy have not been followed.”

Small-Toney declined to make a statement, other than to say, “Thank you mayor and council for this opportunity.”

Throughout the public portion of the specially called council meeting, Small-Toney repeatedly told council that lower-ranking employees had been responsible for the problems, and often could not provide answers when asked specific questions about delays in paying vendors, how the interview for an emergency management director was handled or how the city was exposed to potential liability after a city bid was released that named a business and instructed potential bidders their offer would not be considered if that business was part of their proposal.

“I can’t be accountable if I don’t know about it,” she told council.

The only recent topic that was not discussed Friday were recent disclosures that the city manager had violated the city’s travel policy. Council held a special meeting Tuesday to discuss how it would better oversee not only Small-Toney’s travel, but the clerk of council and city attorney, their other two direct hires.

Johnson is terminated

Several times, the mayor and council members challenged Small-Toney’s statements politely but directly.

Some of the most intense questions centered on how Ben Johnson was chosen as a city consultant and, last month, as the emergency management director.

Johnson and Small-Toney have known each other at least since 2003. As a consultant, Johnson was paid $248,000 over 18 months for his work fighting a proposal to truck liquefied natural gas through the city, even though, on his job application, he wrote that as a senior consultant, he was earning just under $70,000 a year.

As emergency management director, he earned $95,123. That came after a job reclassification and substantial pay increase Small-Toney approved.

Johnson was terminated Thursday following the discovery that his application and a later resume provided inconsistencies about his education and certification.

Small-Toney said he was fired because, given the public furor, he could no longer be effective in his job.

“I don’t think that was all there was to it,” the mayor said. “I think when the two documents are put together, Ben Johnson lied. I’m not going to put words in Chief Middleton’s mouth, but he was very concerned.”

Small-Toney said Middleton and Human Resources Director Beth Robinson had vetted Johnson’s resume. When Alderman Tony Thomas asked whether Small-Toney knew Johnson was suing his previous employer, the city of Richmond, Va., Small-Toney said she had known about it for years.

“We vetted that thoroughly and felt that it wasn’t a problem,” she said.

She also told council she didn’t think Johnson needed to have a master’s degree for his job. When Alderman Thomas and the mayor brought up the $4,500 living allowance Johnson got and moving expenses, Small-Toney provided some her most detailed answers of the session. She supplied council with the negotiated extras former Police Chief Michael Berkow, the revenue director and property maintenance director received.

Thomas asked Small-Toney to see whether any portion of Johnson’s moving expenses or the living expenses, which were established at $1,500 per month, could be returned to taxpayers.

Purchasing problems

The surprise to most members of council was the disclosure that the city’s purchasing department had fallen behind in paying its vendors by at least 45 days in some cases.

Only in the last 48 hours, after long work sessions and relaxed protocols for payment, has the backlog been cleared.

City staff told council the backlog had only been 106 invoices, but council members said they had been told that about 400 had not been paid.

The Savannah Morning News earlier this week filed an Open Records request for memos and documents related to the purchasing problem. No documents have yet been provided.

“This sends a message that we are broke,” the mayor said. “And we are not broke. We have money to pay our bills.”

Alderwoman Estella Shabazz, herself a business owner, was concerned about the wider-reaching problem.

“It’s such a domino effect,” she said. “It gets into households if vendors aren’t paid.”

Mayor Pro Tem Van Johnson echoed an issue other council members raised about having to hear from vendors of the problem.

“My concern is we did not know,” he said. “I just feel like if there’s a cataclysmic breakdown, as it appears to be, there should be some communication.”

Small-Toney blamed the problem on the transition to a new computer system, but when questions were asked about turnover of the entire purchasing staff, Mayor Jackson said she had looked into those concerns and they were “absolutely true.”

Since about April, five purchasing employees have been terminated, forcibly reassigned or have retired or resigned. The department is being run by new hires and temporary staff.

Alderwoman Carol Bell reminded council of a statement from Assistant City Manager Stephanie Cutter, which put the startup of the new computer system at October 2011.

“Obviously something else is going on here, not just a new computer,” she said.

Alderman John Hall said regardless of how many invoices were paid late, the city owed the vendors an apology. Jackson asked for a list, saying she would write an apology to each vendor.

A pulled bid

Issues in purchasing surfaced again when council discussed a hastily pulled bid. It made public the city’s position that a business, named in the bid, not be included in any proposal.

Small-Toney tried to credit the new purchasing director, Carla Byrd, for her quick thinking in resolving the matter, but the mayor spoke up again, saying it was City Attorney James Blackburn who pulled the bid “to make sure the liability to the city would not be there.”

The vendor agreed to sign a statement that he would not sue. No other details were disclosed.

“What bothers me is we got lucky this time,” Thomas said. “It could have resulted in a massive lawsuit against the city.”

‘Suicide from the inside’

About four hours into discussion, Bell somewhat wearily asked Small-Toney whether there were any other issues on the horizon that council may have to deal with.

The city manager responded she wasn’t sure what other Open Records requests were pending. The problems council discussed were either topics of recent Morning News stories or have had Open Records requests submitted.

That prompted the mayor pro tem to speak to what he sees as the underlying problem.

“The elephant in the room is there is a significant morale issue,” he said, adding that it is distraught employees who are reaching out to the media to air concerns.

He recalled the 1980 cliffhanger of the TV show “Dallas,” in which J.R. Ewing was shot. So many people were upset with the Texas villan it was hard to eliminate suspects.

Johnson indirectly urged Small-Toney to look at internal problems rather than place blame.

“We’re dying of suicide from the inside, not because people are shooting us from the outside,” he said.

Corrective action

Council vowed to continually review the city manager’s job performance, which will include a comprehensive performance evaluation within three months.

Though unspoken, they were well aware of the division among residents since March 2011, Small-Toney was named to lead the city. Many of her critics tend to be white residents, many of whom live in Chatham County.

Her staunchest supporters tend to be black residents, many of whom believe her ability to accomplish history by becoming the city’s first black city manager deserves respect and loyalty. For about the first half of the meeting, black community leaders, including the Rev. Thurmond Tillman, businessman and blogger Hank Wilfong, his wife Wyllene Watson and radio host Chester Dunham watched proceedings.

The mayor declined additional comment after reading the statement, saying “I think everything we need to say has been said.”

Alderman Tom Bordeaux, Bell and Shabazz said they expected to make further inquiries on some of the issues raised Friday.

The mayor also will hold weekly meetings with the city manager to be apprised of city operations.

“I think at this point there are enough people interested in this that if the proper corrective action is not being taken, we will hear about it that afternoon,” Bordeaux said.

If that happens, Thomas said, the next step will be up to council.

“The onus is on us to make sure there is improvement and that all policies are followed,” he said. “If there is a breach of the public’s trust, it will be imperative that we take the appropriate action without hesitation.”